Your Right to Know

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost figures that if his office can’t quickly obtain public records, “Joe
Average Citizen isn’t going to fare very well.”

Yost proclaimed yesterday that the “public-records law in Ohio is alive but not well” as he
released a study of cities’ responses to his office’s request on Oct. 17 for copies of their annual
payrolls.

Forty percent of Ohio’s 247 cities failed to provide records within the requested seven to 10
days, a figure that the auditor declared unacceptable. Within a month, 77 percent of cities had
turned over their payrolls.

Two northeastern Ohio cities, Niles and Campbell, still have not responded.

State law does not specify a period within which public-records requests must be fulfilled,
instead using a “reasonable” standard. Yost said cities should provide routine documents within two
days and that any court certainly would find a wait of more than 30 days in violation.

“These documents belong to the people” and should be made available without delay, Yost said at
a news conference that marked “Sunshine Week,” a national campaign to encourage government
transparency.

All central Ohio cities except eight sent records to Yost’s office within 10 days. It took
Lancaster, London and Upper Arlington two weeks to a month to respond.

Five cities — Bexley, Gahanna, Grandview Heights, Groveport and Worthington — took more than
four months to fulfill Yost’s request for payroll records, not responding until receiving a second
formal demand.

Some cities bristled at Yost’s characterization of their slow responses.

Upper Arlington Finance Director Catherine Armstrong said Yost’s office did not file a
public-records request, which would have been handled quicker, but instead asked for two years of
payroll information that had to be reformatted to meet the auditor’s request. It was submitted in
15 days, she said.

Worthington spokeswoman Anne Brown said Yost’s office did not submit an “official records
request ... so it wasn’t viewed as something we were required to participate in.” A second request
was designated as a public-records request and the city promptly provided the information, she
said.

Brian Hoyt, spokesman for Gahanna, said Yost’s request was lost in the city’s transition between
finance directors and was fulfilled within 24 hours once the auditor’s office sent a second request
on Feb. 15.

Yost asked for the records as part of a “pilot project” in which he intends to standardize the
payroll data to allow his office to produce “apples-to-apples” comparisons when examining cities’
pay rates as part of performance audits.

“The reason for a public-records request is irrelevant. They don’t get to ask why,” Yost said of
the cities’ complaints.

State law does not require those asking for public records to state a purpose or to designate
their inquiry as an “official” request.

Local officials expose themselves to legal and financial liability when they invite lawsuits by
failing to promptly provide public records, Yost said.

The auditor suggested that legislators should examine steps to improve access to public records,
such as empowering the attorney general and prosecutors to resolve disputes without requiring
Ohioans to file lawsuits to obtain records.

Local officials also should stop “playing chicken” by denying records requests and should face
removal from elected office if they willfully ignore requests for records, Yost said.